Galina Barinova was a Soviet Russian violinist and music teacher, and a longtime professor at the Moscow Conservatory. She was born in St. Petersburg on October 20, 1910, into a musical family. She began studying violin at age four with Pavel Kochanski, Joseph Achron, and Viktor Zavetnovsky, and made her solo debut at ten.
In 1924–1925, Barinova continued her studies in Paris with Jacques Thibaud. She graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1927, where she also studied theory and composition. From 1925 she performed as a soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic. In 1934 she moved to Moscow and became a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic and All-Union Radio. She won third prize at the All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians in 1937.
In the postwar years, Barinova gave concerts across the Soviet Union and in countries in Europe and Asia. Her repertoire included more than 300 works, including concertos by Glazunov and Sibelius and Bach’s C-major Sonata for solo violin. From the 1950s, she taught at the Moscow Conservatory and the Central Music School; she became a professor in 1967. She also served on the juries of several international competitions, including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Bach Competition in Leipzig, and the Paganini Competition in Genoa.
Barinova received the Stalin Prize, second class, in 1949 for her concert performances and was named People’s Artist of Russia in 1996. She died in Moscow on September 20, 2006, and was buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.